THE Department of Energy (DOE) said it will soon receive funding from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) for the conduct of workshops aimed at improving energy resiliency in off-grid areas.
“I already signed several weeks ago the acceptance. We’re waiting the release of the funds, because, ideally, it should be finished by end of June 2016, before a new president takes over,” Energy Undersecretary Loreta G. Ayson said.
Apec will provide $100,070 to finance the conduct of a series of workshops meant to identify and address common challenges, lessons learned and best practices in improving resiliency of energy infrastructure in off-grid areas.
The amount will be sourced from the Apec Energy Efficiency Sub-Committee Fund.
“It will be our finance department that will keep the fund that will be released by Apec. The objective here is to conduct workshops, gather all experts with regard to energy-infrastructure resiliency,” Ayson said.
“We want to do a handbook on the guidelines on how to attain energy resiliency in off-grid areas. This will take up standards of infrastructure, retrofitting of poor-quality infrastructure, engineering solutions, to withstand the strongest calamities,” she added. The DOE official said she is hopeful that the funds would be released within the month.
Apec stressed the need to improve resiliency of energy infrastructure in off-grid areas, given the threats of natural disasters and the impacts of climate change.
Electricity in these areas is mainly sourced from diesel generators, putting the supply at risk in times of energy disruptions.
At the end of the workshops, a report will be prepared enumerating the current status of implementation of policies and programs among Apec member-economies in ensuring energy access and security of energy supply in the event of natural and man-made disasters, and extreme weather occurrences.
The final output of the project is the publication of the guidelines on best practices, lessons learned, success stories and conclusions from the documentation.